A Story is Simpler (But This is a Life)
by Ferith12
Summary: An exploration of Sakumo's death and what Obito's claim of his heroism meant to Kakashi in relation to it.


p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I think Hatake Sakumo was a hero."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"It's an easy enough thing for Obito to say. An easy enough thing to say about a man you never knew, a story, a legend or a warning./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"It is harder when he is real to you. When you and he are intertwined into one us, and you cannot separate one moment from the whole./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"You remember the way he looked when he came home, exhausted and sad and somewhere deep underneath, very afraid (and that terrified you, because you had never seen him afraid before) but he was happy too, and proud. Happy to be home, proud to have gotten his comrades home, happy to see you, proud to see your hitai-ate and hear you try not to complain about D-ranks. If he felt shame in that moment, you could not see it./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"You are Hatake, the Wolf, tall-standing and proud and honor-bound and you bow to no one. It was only the two of you who were left then, but you were, both of you, enough for pride./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"You remember what he looked like when war was announced, when the first shinobi died in it, when the first genin died, when the whispers grew louder and louder until they pounded in your ears inescapable./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"It was shame and shame and shame./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"You understood then what your father had done. He had failed the village. He had caused the deaths of countless, and brought shame upon himself and shame upon his name, shame upon your name. He was a shame to the village and they cursed him as they had a right to./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Sepuku is not an easy way out. It is painful, slow. You are all ninja. You know a thousand other ways to kill a man, quicker ways, painless ways, simpler ways. Sepuku takes putting a tanto to your stomach pushing in, pushing deep, spilling your guts out onto the floor. It takes courage, intent, honor./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Your father's death was a choice, one not made lightly. He erred and took the consequence of his error, removed himself and his stain from his clan and his village, left you alone to do right by your name and your ancestors./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"You smelled the blood coming home from your chunnin exams. You had passed them as you knew you would but it filled you with excitement and pride anyway. You were a real adult now, and you wanted to tell your father. But you smelled his blood before you reached your house and started running./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Afterwards, you held your head high and your back straight. The townspeople didn't shun you anymore, and when shinobi spoke of your father they did so with sympathy and respect, because in the end he had done the right thing and died well and honorably./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"You found him lying in his blood and guts, with the smell of it hanging suffocating in the air. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Every night you dream of his blood. You do not always dream of him, because you are a warrior and this is war, and there are many, many deaths for you to dream of. But every drop of blood in your dreams holds his scent./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"When you found him you fell to your knees in his blood and held your breath. You did not cry because shinobi do not cry, and you did not allow yourself to grieve him, because his death was right and natural, it was a gift given to you to restore your pride, because he had been a man you could not be proud of. And you were not allowed to grieve this./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"So it is a simple thing for Obito, for whom Hatake Sakumo is only a story of a man who saved his teammates, and whose death is only a sad footnote, unattached./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"But for you, you cannot have one without the other. And so there is no sense in which your father was a hero, because if he was right to save them, he was wrong to have left you./p 


End file.
